Slow Progress

It has been sometime since the last update and the complaints have been heeded! I thought it especially important to have one available for the Monday morning blues in the office (I’m sure that’s not just me!).

I guess some of the reason for the lack of updates has been a lack of progress in general. After being fairly optimistic following our first house viewing, we have heard nothing back and have had to assume that the potential buyers are not interested. They had seemed to be in a perfect position to buy our house, but have obviously decided not to. Our marketing has also been hindered by the removal of our For Sale board by the developers, we did sign a restricted covenant agreeing not to display a board and after a couple of requests by letter they decided to enforce the contract themselves by removing it. I am getting seriously worried now that the sale of the house will slow down our departure and potentially my leaving work. After lots of stressing by me, we have decided to press ahead with plans and hope it all comes together in time. Kevin’s contract finishes in March 2008 anyway, so we should still be in a position to pick up the boat, we just might have more dual living for a while. I guess there is still a long time to go, so I shouldn’t be panicking yet, I will just have to stop being so impatient for now!

We were originally planning to head to La Rochelle for our factory visit at Fountaine Pajot (boat builders) at the beginning of October, there has been a slight change of plan and we are now booked in for the end of next week. We are really looking forward to this both as a holiday and as a chance to progress our plans. We are planning to do some window shopping in La Rochelle at the many chandlers there to see if we can buy in bulk the basic kit we need to buy (spare anchors, fenders etc) which will save us quite a lot of hassle in terms of transporting. We have our shopping list prepared so we will take that with us and see what we can negotiate. The other option is the London Boat Show or other local chandlers. We have also got a quote now for a company in La Rochelle to supply and fit the electronics we want through MI Cats who have been very helpful in coordinating these arrangements. The marine electronics company have access to the boat during production and will be able to fit the electronics while it is off the water and the mast is down etc with an onboard warranty. This is obviously a much easier option to take and the importance of that the week after we get married shouldn’t be underestimated! We are reviewing the prices at the moment, as Kevin fitted all of our previous electronics, but it does involve drilling holes through the hull and climbing the mast on a brand new boat, so we are definitely leaning in the direction of handing it over to them!

It was Kevin’s birthday last week and as agreed only “useful” presents were allowed! We’d discussed that I would buy him a sextant, which one to be decided when he’d started his course at Fleetwood. Unfortunately, this plan back fired when the chosen model (Astra III B, All View) was found to be out of stock throughout the UK and Channel Islands! Anyway, as this was the chosen model, Kevin has had to wait for the back order, but he did get some charts of the Canary Islands which has been great to make it all seem a bit more real again.